Changes Ahead And New Directions

It has been a crazy last couple of months here at Vervely HQ. We’ve moved premises in-between the hectic time of working out stuff for the End of Financial Year (EOFY) and the beginning of a new FY. But, as we reach the end of July, we’re pleased to say that it has been a great first full FY for Vervely.

With the beginning of a new FY, however, we had to make some decisions due to increasing workloads and changes in the direction of our business. Some of the changes that are coming up include:

Our VIP Circle will take on a different format.

Over the last year, we’ve been offering both Free and Premium VIP Circle memberships. While a “freemium” subscription model seemed like the best choice at the time, we’re seeing a better option as we enter our second year. As such, we are going to implement the following changes:

We will be ceasing our annual membership subscription. If you’re an existing member, don’t worry. You will get to keep your access indefinitely. You don’t need to pay anything else to keep accessing our exclusive content. Even if we add/change/revise the templates and other materials we have there, you will be able to keep using these materials. So, if you want to have this benefit, we highly suggest that you sign-up for a Premium VIP Circle membership on or before the 30th of August 2013. This option will no longer be available in September.

The future of our exclusive content will be accessible either as one-offs or as packages. Over the last year, we’ve been offering templates, PowerPoint presentations, and more on a monthly basis. Even if you knew you were going to get something new each month, you never know what type of exclusive content that you’re going to get on a month-by-month basis. This makes it tough for people to decide whether they would want the content or not on an ongoing basis. Now, with a library of over a dozen exclusive content, plus dozens of accompanying feature articles and tips, we have decided that it would be best to offer these things either as single purchases or as part of a themed package. For example, we’re looking at making our content calendar template available as a single download, or as part of a bigger package on Content Planning and Strategy. This way, you only get what you need for a particular job or task. We’ll talk more about this in the coming months.

Revamping our content publication schedule.

As mentioned earlier, our workload this year is looking busier than ever for client work. As such, we need to re-organise our schedule and become more efficient. And, one of the things that need to be re-adjusted is our publication schedules. This includes our blog and our newsletter, as well as our social channels.

Our blog will now be updated with new features 1-2x a month. In the past, we’ve shared new articles and features at least 1-2x a week. Sometimes, more. Due to the change in schedule, we will be changing this to once or twice a month now. We might update more, if we add on “less meaty” or “news type” content (like this one). But, rest assured that we intend to continue sharing quality content. If you want to be updated as soon as we publish new content, do subscribe to our RSS feed or email blasts.

Our feature newsletters will move from monthly to quarterly. Over the last year, we’ve sent out a monthly newsletter without fail. Sure, we ended up moving our schedule from first Tuesday/Wednesday of the month, to last week of the month recently. But, we’ve never failed to deliver on our promise to send out a monthly update. However, this new FY, we will need to change this and only publish once between the period of July – September, October – December, January – March, and April – June. Most likely, closer to the in-between months.

Exclusive content will be published on an ad hoc basis. Like the newsletter, we used to share at least one exclusive content a month. From hereon, we intend to continue publishing them, but the schedule will no longer be on a monthly basis. Some months, we might be able to publish several in one go. There might also be times when we won’t share anything new for a little while. But, we intend to continue developing new materials to help you with your digital media needs.

Other changes in the works.

There are a few other things that we’re working on at the moment that I’m sure we’ll be sharing more of as they take off. But, for now, we wish to say thank you for the wonderful first year at Vervely. We hope that Year 2 will be even better.

About the Author

Shai Coggins is the Manager and Chief Digital Media Specialist at Vervely, an Australia-based agency serving local and international clients. One of the company's main clients is Microsoft. Shai has been featured in a number of media due to her online work, including being named as one of Fast Company's "Most Influential Women in Technology" list (2009).